


Talking Without Speaking

by vondrostes



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: (sort of), Angst and Porn, Bottom Harry, Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Gags, Hurt/Comfort, Light BDSM, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Rimming, Switching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 03:18:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20202862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vondrostes/pseuds/vondrostes
Summary: Louis enjoyed a bit of physical intimacy minus the conversation every once in a while, but it already felt like the one thing they never did when they were together anymore was talk. And now Harry just had an excuse to continue to avoid it.





	Talking Without Speaking

**Author's Note:**

> This was a Request! The dynamics were something I'd never considered before, so writing it was a bit of an experience. Enjoy!
> 
> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
Tumblr: @vondrostes

“Aren’t you hot?”

Harry glanced over from where he was sat on a poolside lounger, his skin gleaming under the summer sun as he basked naked in the garden. Evidently, he’d been undeterred by Liam’s hypochondric ramblings about skin cancer the week prior in their group chat. Harry slowly lifted his buggy pink sunglasses away from his eyes and pushed them into his hair to give Louis a sceptical look.

“You’ve known me for nearly ten years,” Harry pointed out in a slow drawl. “You know all about my cold intolerance.”

“Still,” Louis countered as he reached up for the fifth time in under a minute to wipe away the sweat beading above his brow, “it’s like an oven out here. Don’t know how you can even stand it.”

“You’re welcome to go inside where there’s aircon if you aren’t comfortable.”

Louis knew the snippiness in Harry’s voice had nothing to do with their discussion about the weather. Harry had been a bit stroppy all day after their argument that morning about his studio time. Namely, Louis couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t just reschedule his time slots for next week, when Louis would be in Europe again, so that they could make the most of their time together _now_. Harry had insisted that it wasn’t that much time spent in the studio to start with and refused to put his work on hold for seemingly any reason—even when it was Louis who was doing the asking.

And, although it was begrudging, Louis had found the wherewithal somewhere deep inside himself to respect that decision. But the argument had still managed to rear its ugly head over breakfast despite their agreement beforehand to keep work-talk to an absolute minimum.

“I don’t want to go inside,” Louis insisted, which was (technically) a lie. He very much wanted to go inside; he just didn’t want to go inside without Harry, who seemed equally committed to getting a semi-decent tan out of the afternoon. If this was all the quality time they’d get together, then Louis wanted to make sure they were actually spending it _together_, not in separate wings of the absurdly huge house that neither of them were enamoured by any longer.

When Harry had first bought the place a few years ago, things had been different. The break, the perks of the break, the evolution of their own relationship—all of it had still been a novelty back then. Now it all felt every bit as stagnant as the summer heat that was currently smothering West Hollywood.

“How long before you have to leave?” Louis pressed. Maybe there was a chance he could convince Harry to do something fun before he was whisked off to the studio again, the way he had been nearly every night of Louis’s stay so far. Once he was gone, there was no telling how long he’d be out. Sometimes he didn’t come back for nearly eight hours, by which point Louis was usually in bed and trying—and failing—to fall asleep.

Harry sighed. “Two hours?” he replied vaguely.

Louis closed his eyes and did his best to suppress an answering sigh. Two hours wasn’t long enough to accomplish anything in Los Angeles, where everything and everyone moved as slow as molasses. It was like the whole city was living in a state of suspended animation, without the normal cycle of changing weather to remind them that time was passing by. Louis hated it. He really did. But for now, Harry was firmly rooted there, and with the kid to worry about—

A loud splash suddenly jerked Louis out of his increasingly melancholy stream of consciousness. Harry was bobbing around in the pool now, his sunglasses somehow still perched precariously in his dishevelled mop of wet curls.

“Are you getting in?” Harry demanded.

Louis let out a heavy sigh as he stood up and shed what little clothing he’d already been wearing. Then he dashed forward and jumped over Harry’s head, tucking into a cannonball at the last second and landing in the water with a splash big enough to soak the deck, he was pleased to discover when he popped back up for air.

“We didn’t bring any towels,” Louis pointed out to Harry as he laid flat on his back in the water and slowly began to swim in circles around him.

Harry shrugged. “We’ll just use the guest shower.”

That’s exactly where they ended up an hour later, when Harry finally had to get out of the pool or risk being late for his time slot at the studio. They had just enough time for Harry to get on his knees and take Louis into his mouth—but not enough time for them to finish, as they were interrupted by the alarm on Harry’s phone just a few minutes too soon.

“Sorry,” Harry apologised with a half-smile as he stood up, gave Louis a peck on the lips, and stepped out of the shower so he could dry himself off.

Louis remained under the warm spray, sulking, until he was gone.

There wasn’t much to do with Harry out of the house, and since Harry had been out of the house a lot lately, Louis had pretty much exhausted all his options for staving off boredom until he returned.

That was why, when Harry walked through the door at exactly half-eleven that evening, he found Louis engaged in a jigsaw puzzle in the middle of the sitting room floor, the borders only just finished, while the rest of the pieces were strewn about on the rug.

Louis glanced up, expecting Harry to immediately throw his things down and join him, but Harry didn’t even meet Louis’s eyes as he walked straight by, into the kitchen. Louis gave him a minute, but when Harry didn’t emerge again and the silence continued with no end in sight, he finally got up and tiptoed after him to find out what was wrong.

Louis discovered Harry leant up in the corner between the fridge and the kitchen cabinets, a glass of wine already in his hand. That was really all the information he needed, but he couldn’t help but ask anyway. “How was it?”

“Bad,” Harry replied in a whisper. His face was scrunched up into a grimace, but Louis knew from experience that the expression didn’t mean he was angry, it was just the way he looked when he was trying to keep from crying. “Couldn’t get any of the vocals right and my throat is killing me. They want me on vocal rest for a bit.”

“How long?”

Harry shrugged, though his answer was anything but vague. “Through the weekend,” he replied, still in a subdued voice, like he was trying to put as little effort as possible into making himself heard. “Sorry.”

Louis was annoyed and sympathetic all at once. He knew Harry couldn’t have predicted his voice giving out, but at the same time, the hectic schedule he’d been keeping was bound to blow up in his face one way or the other. Louis sighed and reached out a hand to pluck the glass of wine away from Harry’s fingers. “I’ll make you some tea,” he offered.

It turned out that Harry’s vocal coach wanted him to rest his voice for at least a full forty-eight hours before coming back into the studio, which meant that for nearly the remainder of Louis’s stay, Harry wouldn’t be able to say a word.

Sure, Louis could enjoy a bit of physical intimacy minus the conversation every once in a while, but it already felt like the one thing they never did when they were together anymore was _talk_. And now Harry just had an excuse to continue to avoid it.

But if there was anything Louis was good at, it was making sure that Harry took care of himself. They agreed that night to make it a silent weekend for them both: if Harry couldn’t use his voice, then neither could Louis, just so he wouldn’t be tempted into responding. If they needed to communicate beyond using the bit of sign language they already used on occasion, they were both to use their phones.

It wasn’t necessarily part of the agreement, but Louis had taken it upon himself to make sure that Harry was imbibing copious amounts of herbal tea to soothe his throat, as well as even more water. In the interim, they watched movies on the couch without saying a word—which was unusual given the fact that Louis liked to heckle the actors throughout any sort of romantic film just to rile Harry up a bit.

It wasn’t long before the gentle brush of Harry’s cheek against Louis’s shoulder turned into Harry almost sitting in Louis’s lap instead. After that, an even briefer period of time passed before Harry was grinding down onto Louis’s steadily thickening cock as the two of them panted loudly into each other’s mouths, their breathing the only sound in their ears now that the movie had faded to a quiet close in the background.

Louis pulled away, parting his lips to ask Harry if they should move to his bedroom before they continued. At the last second, he caught himself. His teeth clacked together loudly, eliciting a quizzical expression from Harry, who had paused the rhythmic movements of his hips as soon as Louis shifted away from him.

Louis huffed out a sigh through his nose and lifted his right hand to the side of his head, making the sign for bed with a meaningful look.

Harry blinked at him a couple times and then shook his head. He didn’t wait for Louis to continue before ducking down to unzip the fly on Louis’s trousers, his impatience practically tangible as he struggled to get Louis’s cock out.

Handjobs, then. Louis could live with that.

Harry’s hand around his cock was better than it should have been, but Louis felt like he’d been touch-starved all week, even with Harry right there next to him all the while. Something about the silence made everything else more charged, too, like there was an electric current running through both of their bodies, sizzling with energy at every point of contact.

Louis pulled Harry back in by his hair and kissed him fiercely as he came, muffling the sounds he knew he wouldn’t be able to stifle into the heat of Harry’s mouth instead.

After, they separated and flopped down onto opposite sides of the sofa with their phones in hand.

_Good? _Harry asked, beating Louis to the punch with his faster fingers.

_Feel like we should have been doing that all week instead of wasting our time by the pool._

Harry rolled his eyes and scooted away from Louis. _Are we really going to have this out right now? Over text?_

Louis stared down at his phone in lieu of looking up at Harry, who he knew was waiting for a response. _No_, he finally typed. _Sorry._

_It’s fine. I’m going to shower then we can make dinner. K?_

Louis just nodded in response.

On the second day of their forty-eight hour vow of temporary silence, Harry seemed to take Louis’s words from the night prior to heart. He woke Louis with a blowjob, jumped him in the shower straight after breakfast, and by the time lunch came and went, Louis was feeling like he’d been wrung dry.

_I need a break_, he finally insisted over text as Harry attempted to do something with his foot in the vicinity of Louis’s crotch.

Harry pouted exaggeratedly as he pulled out his phone and read the message. _Well I’m still horny_, he shot back.

_You’re killing me_.

_You’re the one who said we should have spent the whole week fucking instead of working_.

Louis met Harry’s stony glare with an unimpressed look of his own. _I’ll eat you out_, he said, extending an olive branch of sorts.

Harry’s eyes finally widened with a bit of enthusiasm, and Louis didn’t have time to type anything else before Harry was up off of his lap and dashing away in the direction of the stairs. Louis scrambled off the couch and quickly followed, not wanting to give Harry too much of a head start, but by the time he made it to the bedroom, Harry had already managed to strip off all of his clothing and was sprawled out and breathless on top of the sheets.

Louis motioned for Harry to roll over and then waited.

He only took off his shirt before climbing up onto the bed behind Harry—because he knew from experience that Harry was liable to sweat on him, and he didn’t want to be distracted by the smell sticking to the fabric later. At least this way he wouldn’t have to change his clothes.

Harry buried his face in the pillows before Louis even got to him, but it wasn’t enough to drown out the long moan that emanated from his throat as soon as Louis swiped the flat of his tongue over Harry’s hole.

Louis lifted his head again and tapped two fingers against the inside of Harry’s thigh in warning. If he couldn’t abide by his vocal coach’s orders to rest his vocal cords—even when it came to sounds that didn’t count as speech—then Louis wouldn’t continue.

Harry got the message without having to be told twice. He stayed nice and quiet as he laid there limply against the duvet, letting Louis spread him open and lick into him at a torturously slow pace. Usually, by now Louis would have slipped in a finger or at least touched his cock, but Louis wanted to make sure that Harry knew who was supposed to be in control after how needy and demanding he’d been all morning.

A minute or two more passed, and then Louis heard it, the unexpected sound causing him to jerk his head up to figure out what had been the cause.

“Open me up.”

The voice, tinny and robotic, clearly hadn’t come from Harry’s mouth, but it took Louis another second to locate the source—the phone in his hand with a voice app open. Louis pursed his lips and decided to ignore him.

“Make me come.”

Apparently, Harry didn’t like that idea. Louis continued to lick him, soft and gently, refusing Harry’s demands even though he couldn’t outright object to them. His own phone sat heavily in his pocket, but he wasn’t about to stoop to Harry’s level and pull it out in the middle of sex.

“Please, need to come.”

Louis had finally had enough. He gave in, just to be rid of the annoying text-to-speech voice Harry was so keen on incorporating into his attempts at dirty talk (if it could even be called that). Louis pushed two fingers into Harry, curling them down as he continued to lap his tongue around the rim of Harry’s hole, stretched out and clenching weakly around the two digits now. He pressed down hard, and felt Harry seize up around him, his legs trembling from the force of his orgasm as he spilled onto the duvet.

Louis pulled away with a mixture of annoyance and satisfaction, and walked out of the room to get a warm flannel to clean up with.

Thankfully, Harry decided to tone things down a little after that, and Louis’s dick finally got a much-needed break.

They ended up in Harry’s home studio after making themselves presentable again, with Louis sat at the keyboard and Harry with a guitar in his lap. It was surprisingly easy to experiment with different riffs and melodies even though they couldn’t use words to communicate with each other. This time, Louis gladly let Harry take the lead, and he steered them both through a rambling tune that Louis clumsily accompanied. At the end of it, Harry was positively beaming, and Louis couldn’t help himself as he leaned over to kiss him midway through the transcription process on the computer afterward.

Harry glanced up at Louis inquisitively after he’d pulled away. Louis just shrugged. He’d kissed Harry because he liked seeing Harry happy and because he’d felt like it. There wasn’t a deeper reason. There didn’t need to be.

They ate late in the evening, after the sun had already set and the summer air had cooled enough to allow them to eat outside on the patio. Louis found himself staring into the pool as the lights changed the water from purple to pink to red to orange to yellow to green to blue, and then back again. He ate slowly, savouring the sensory experience of tasting his food without any auditory distractions.

Harry kept one foot tucked between Louis’s ankles as they sat there together. An anchoring point. For the first time in a long time, Louis actually felt…peaceful. Like all the stressors and noise in his life had finally melted away. And he never wanted it to end.

That was why, when Harry inevitably started to fidget and flail in his seat in an effort to get Louis’s attention, Louis did his best to ignore it. It was easier said than done, however. Harry seemed rather determined, and Louis could just make out Harry signing something out of the corner of his eye as Harry persisted in kicking his shins, trying to make him turn and look.

Finally, Harry let out a loud huff of breath and slumped back in his chair. A few seconds later, Louis’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out to find a text message from Harry.

_Bedroom. Undress. Now._

Louis lifted his eyebrows as he finally turned to meet Harry’s piercing gaze. He shook his head and ignored the fleeting look of hurt on Harry’s face as he glanced back down at his phone to type a reply. _Bring out some blankets and lube._

Harry didn’t need to be told twice. He hopped out of his seat, stumbling a bit on his way to the back door, and then disappeared inside while Louis remained still, waiting.

It wouldn’t be the first time they’d had sex outdoors, but it would be a first for this particular abode. There was a soft patch of grass amongst the flowers in Harry’s garden, off to the side and away from the pool, and the walls around them were high enough that there wasn’t any risk of being spotted. And the atmosphere was so calm and still now that Louis couldn’t imagine doing anything to potentially disturb it.

It didn’t take long for Harry to return with the requested items, at which point Louis finally got up and helped Harry arrange a cosy little nest right there on the grass. After they’d finished, Louis took the bottle of lube in hand and gestured for Harry to lie down in the centre of the blankets. He did so after quickly undressing, and then Louis did the same, shedding his clothes right there in the middle of the garden without a care for where they landed.

Harry was flat on his back with his legs slightly parted when Louis knelt down between them and uncapped the bottle of lube with a click that echoed like a firecracker in the still silence around them. He poured a bit on his fingers and then pushed them into Harry without warning, staring deep into green eyes that reflected back the dull glow of the patio lights back at him as they shot open in response to the intrusion.

Harry was panting and writhing on Louis’s fingers within just a few minutes, but instead of pulling them out and replacing them with his cock, Louis pushed in a third and kept going.

Harry’s breathing was heavy and loud between them, but Louis wasn’t worried about Harry accidentally breaching the silence with anything more. Usually, when they had sex, it was Louis who was the loud one, the performative one, the aggressive one—talking Harry through his orgasms, sometimes goading him into them—but this felt different.

It felt a bit like having sex again for the very first time, and when Louis finally pulled away to slick up his cock, he was overwhelmed by the sight of Harry splayed out before him like an offering, his body still and pliant and open as he quietly waited for Louis to come back.

When Louis moved forward again and joined their bodies, he was surprised at how much more intimate it felt than the last time they’d had sex. It was like without the posturing and dirty talk, all they had was each other, and the way they felt inside each other, and Louis suddenly couldn’t tell which direction was up or down, because all he could see and feel was Harry, warm and tight around him as he connected their mouths.

After it was over, Louis rolled off of Harry with a quiet sigh and stared up at the stars, just barely visible in the sky above them thanks to the light pollution emanating from the city. He spent a minute catching his breath as Harry did the same beside him, their shoulders touching as they lay together on the blankets, and when Louis finally sat up to retrieve his phone from his discarded trousers to check the time, he realised then that their forty-eight hours were finally up.

“Is that what it feels like to be gagged during sex?” Louis wondered aloud as he glanced over his shoulder at Harry, who looked up at him in confusion for a moment before realising what had happened.

Harry lifted himself up onto his elbows, his soft cock still plainly visible against his belly as he shifted into a more comfortable position before replying. “A bit,” he said in a voice that sounded a little hoarse from disuse. “It helps sometimes, I think,” he continued with a contemplative expression. “Like, to get out of my own head for a while. ‘S why I like the other stuff, too.”

Louis didn’t need to ask for clarification to know what Harry meant by that. They’d tried out bondage and various forms of sensory deprivation on multiple occasions, and though Louis had never understood exactly why Harry liked that sort of thing, he was nothing but accommodating in bed. And if Louis was being entirely honest, the way Harry looked with his arms stretched out over his head and his legs spread wide was nothing if not a plus.

“I suppose,” Harry said after a few seconds had passed, “it helps me to focus more on the person I’m with, too, instead of myself. It feels nice.” He shrugged a little, like he was embarrassed at his own honesty, but Louis appreciated it.

“Suppose we better go inside before we get eaten alive out here,” Louis said not too much later, as he scrambled to his feet before extending a hand to Harry to help him up as well.

Once inside, they showered together, and then headed straight for the bedroom to spend the rest of the night in front of the telly under the sheets together, even though it was still far too early to go to sleep.

Still, it took Louis hours before he mustered up the courage to bring up the thing that had been bothering him since right after they’d fucked outside in the garden, and by the time he finally did open his mouth, he was afraid it might have been too late.

“D’you think we could squeeze in one more round before bed?” Louis asked hopefully. He was due to leave for LAX in less than eight hours, which meant that no matter what, he certainly wasn’t going to get a full night’s sleep before his flight even if he laid down and closed his eyes right that second.

Harry, who had meetings the next morning at around the same time, yawned widely before turning his head to look over at Louis. “How do you want me?” he asked sleepily.

It was an easy assumption that Harry thought Louis would tell him to roll over onto his stomach, so he could lie there lazily while Louis fucked him, but tonight, that’s not what Louis wanted at all.

“I want you on top,” Louis told him. “And I want you to gag me and tie me up.”

Harry sat bolt upright in bed, his eyes wide as the sheets fell away from his naked chest. “What?” he said in disbelief.

Louis didn’t repeat himself. “Is that a no?” he asked instead. He was already preparing himself for a soft rejection.

Harry shook his head. “I just don’t—is this because of what I said in the garden?”

Louis nodded hesitantly. “Sort of,” he clarified. “You still have all our stuff, right?”

“Yeah,” Harry replied, though he still looked a bit reluctant even as he climbed out of bed to retrieve the bag from the closet. When he came back, it was with a familiar pair of Velcro cuffs in one hand and a ball-gag Louis had never seen before in the other. When Louis arched an eyebrow at the new item, Harry’s face got a bit defensive. “I just bought it,” he explained hastily.

They’d done this a number of times with their positions reversed, so getting Louis cuffed to the headboard wasn’t all that tricky, though it felt strange afterward, when Louis was the one with his arms immobilised up above his head, waiting helplessly as Harry pulled down the sheets to the foot of the bed before tugging off Louis’s trousers to expose his semi-rigid cock.

“You know, for a curiosity thing, you actually seem like you might be into this,” Harry noted with a hint of amusement as he straddled the tops of Louis’s thighs and took him in hand.

Louis wasn’t doing it out of pure curiosity, but he didn’t see the need to correct Harry at that particular moment. “You haven’t gagged me,” he pointed out.

Harry gave him a sharp look that he matched with a rough tug on Louis’s cock. “Let me get you ready first,” he insisted. “And we haven’t even figured out what to do if you want out, yet.”

“I’ll just blink a lot,” Louis offered, already helpfully demonstrating by fluttering his eyelashes rapidly while Harry stared down at him, utterly unimpressed.

It ended up being another minute or so before Harry finally pressed the ball-gag between Louis’s teeth, his fingers almost unbearably gentle as he fastened it behind Louis’s head. And then it was done, and Louis’s heart rate skyrocketed as he finally realised the position he was in.

The panic faded shortly after Harry scooted back down the line of Louis’s body again to hover over his cock instead, and soon Louis’s heart rate was tripling for a very different reason.

There was no denying that what they were doing was the very definition of kinky, but for whatever reason, it didn’t feel anything like one of their past excursions into new fetishes as Harry slowly lowered himself down onto Louis’s cock while Louis just stared up at him, helpless to grab at Harry’s hips or speed up the process in anyway.

Harry placed the palms of his hands against Louis’s stomach, using the hard muscles there as leverage to help him lift his hips up and down with an agonising slowness at first, before gradually building up speed, until Louis’s eyes rolled into the back of his head with how good it felt.

And it did feel _good_. It was the kind of feeling Louis only got when he was fucking Harry again for the first time in months, the feeling that he used to have all the time at the very beginning when everything they did was shiny and new and exciting. And at the same time, Louis felt just as serene as he had in the garden earlier that evening, when there was nothing else in the world to distract him from the feeling of Harry’s body.

And the longer that Harry rocked down on top of him, the more Louis came to terms with the fact that he was powerless to do anything _but_ feel. So he closed his eyes, focussing on the heat of Harry’s hands on his skin and the waves of pleasure radiating from his groin as Harry clenched down on him with every stroke.

There was no pressure on Louis to withhold his orgasm like he might have directed Harry to do if their positions had been reversed. Harry wasn’t domming him so much as allowing Louis to experience something he couldn’t have felt if he hadn’t surrendered himself to the pure physical experience of Harry on top of him, around him, and it wasn’t long before he felt himself bucking up involuntarily to meet Harry’s thrusts as he came, his cries muffled against the gag as his fingers curled uselessly around nothing.

Louis fell back against the mattress with Harry still on top of him. Harry didn’t move despite the fact that Louis’s cock was softening inside his arse; he simply waited until Louis’s eyes opened again before reaching down to wrap a hand around himself. It only took a few strokes before he was spilling onto Louis’s heaving belly, leaving a Pollock-esque painting over his lower stomach like he was staking a claim for the future.

Louis could feel the tendrils of unease at not being able to move start to creep in again the longer he laid there, but Harry was quick to uncuff him as soon as he’d recovered from his orgasm, and once Louis was free of the restraints and the gag, he tugged Harry down onto his chest and wound his arms around him tight, not wanting to ever let go.

Because in the morning, everything would go back to the way it was before.


End file.
